Hello, Is anyone else experiencing no applications for their sit? Only a month to go and had no one interested. I’ve messages previous sitters and some that had previously said they would be interested in the future, but no luck.
Getting rather concerned that I will not have the cover I need.
K
@kayn do you definitely have public dates. ?
THS shows my sit as live.
There are lots of sits without any applications now on THS. My guess it is because inflation has eaten away at pensions. Especially the cost of travel has gone up a lot. So people stay at home more.
You need to add your sit to your profile so we can see it
How would I do that please?
If you do a search in the forum you can often find the answer to your question. Here’s how to add your listing, members can then have a look to see if it can be improved. Also, have you included all the amenities since you last had a sitter? If you make changes to your listing it will boost it to the top of the pile for a while
It looks like you tried but the link that comes up, goes to the page for you to edit your profile and thus can’t be seen by anyone else.
Listing ID is 154139, Rushall, UK
March 14-19
So yes, that is one of the programming fails in the THS user interface, and it is absolutely incredible that they have not managed to fix that in all these years 
One can find that url by looking for yourself under “Find a house sit” and enter your own town.
Your sit looks lovely to me. I note that a car is necessary. I no longer apply to remotely located sits unless use of a car is provided because car rental costs are so high. Is your home really not accessible without a car? Could you pick up from a train station? Could groceries be delivered? I do hope you find someone soon.
Similar here. One person was interested then withdrew…in 45 minutes to take another sit!! My bad for not stopping to read emails while driving my son to school. The second applied, and asked about if a car was needed — which it was clear from the listing it was. Maybe they were wanting me to rent a car for them? It’s really hard to book travel then wait with a lot of worry to see if this will work for pet sitting. I wish there was more than just a “7 day out” last minute sit posting area within this forum. But a month out. Not everyone plans trips 3 months out! It’s been a week more and no one else is interested. I’m starting to interview local paid sitters as I can’t wait indefinitely. I have invited many, only a few even respond (that they can’t) although calendars wide open. I wish availability was kept up to date.
@kayn lovely dogs lovely home but comparatively your sit has difficulties that are a big ask of a volunteer sitter and will significantly limit your pool of applicants.
You say you need a car to transport the dogs for walks but you are not offering a car.
You also seem to live quite remotely so without sitters having their own car they’re kind of stuck without groceries etc.
Your expectation is sitters have their own car or hire and transport your dogs for their walks which is a big ask and not very realistic.
Two young strong dogs that pull on leads therefore need a couple likely and people very competent with dogs
Raw food diets are a lot for people to handle and manage as it’s not necessarily the norm.
Multi animal household - 2 dogs and a cat is more responsibility than an average sit.
the dogs need very long walks multiple times a day as they have a lot of energy also cannot be left more than 4 hours and because of lack of nearby options can’t really be taken with the sitter for longer days out and company.
This is not to say that you will not find a sitter but these are points I have noticed are more demanding than average.
You are requiring someone to fulfil all these things at their own cost as this is a volunteer website. Potentially letting the sitters use your car would sweeten the deal a bit - essentially you have to compete with other sits to attract people.
You seem to have the opinion that sitters are kind of on call to start working for you (without pay) when they are “unemployed”.
No, that is not how it works on THS.
If you consider that there are more sits than sitters, it’s clear that hosts are typically competing for sitters. (Just look at how many sits have low applications.) So unless you’re in a popular location, it’s often in your interest to post sits earlier than latter. Many good sitters book months ahead. Some even book up to a year out.
You don’t have to plan way ahead, of course. Your life — you can do what you like. But that doesn’t mean your urgency or late planning becomes anyone else’s concern. And it doesn’t mean that sitters will necessarily want to pay higher travel costs to get to your sit at the last minute, either. Again, if you’re not in a popular location, that’s even less likely.
Not every host wants to offer the use of a car, but that’s one way to make a less popular location potentially more appealing to sitters, especially if you’re not close to things like markets and sights that sitters might find appealing.
The calendar function isn’t great, and just because someone is "available " which actually just means not on a THS sit it doesn’t mean they’re willing/able to come to your house. If I really like the look of a sit or the dates line up great I’ll ask if a car is necessary because I sometimes travel with a bike so 6+ miles from the nearest station or town is fine. So that might be where they were coming from - or they thought you might offer to collect from the train station if the time was getting close and you hadn’t had any applicants. It has to be a give/take and something like that could work out very nicely for everyone!
@AnnaALVT we keep our calendar updated and receive lots of invitations each week . Unfortunately they have all been in places that we are not available to travel to. For instance we received an invitation to travel to a destination 200 miles away which also required a ferry crossing for a short sit of one day only . We also received an invitation for a sit in a country the other side of the world .
There is no way for sitters to indicate on the THS calendar which area we want to be in for specific dates .
@AnnaALVT
We’ve got a tough sell in the North East in the Winter…and we don’t have public transportation, other than Boston…NE’ders need cars.
We posted for a Jan sit in NH and truly lucked out with our thsitters…but apps were FEW.
I will do local sits in NE…but waiting for Spring…
Fingers crossed for you:crossed_fingers:
Think you are responding to the wrong person here. The words you have copied are not from my question. Nowhere do I suggest that sitters are on call to work for me and are unemployed. I have had 3 very successful sits, I’ve just not had anything positive for this listing.
Thanks for the feedback, I will consider the options and update the details.
| Enjaybee
18 February |
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@kayn lovely dogs lovely home but comparatively your sit has difficulties that are a big ask of a volunteer sitter and will significantly limit your pool of applicants.
You say you need a car to transport the dogs for walks but you are not offering a car.
You also seem to live quite remotely so without sitters having their own car they’re kind of stuck without groceries etc.
Your expectation is sitters have their own car or hire and transport your dogs for their walks which is a big ask and not very realistic.
Two young strong dogs that pull on leads therefore need a couple likely and people very competent with dogs
Raw food diets are a lot for people to handle and manage as it’s not necessarily the norm.
Multi animal household - 2 dogs and a cat is more responsibility than an average sit.
the dogs need very long walks multiple times a day as they have a lot of energy also cannot be left more than 4 hours and because of lack of nearby options can’t really be taken with the sitter for longer days out and company.
This is not to say that you will not find a sitter but these are points I have noticed are more demanding than average.
You are requiring someone to fulfil all these things at their own cost as this is a volunteer website. Potentially letting the sitters use your car would sweeten the deal a bit - essentially you have to compete with other sits to attract people.